by Henry Pu Yi
Under this new “water flow” system, everything piled up on me and the “water” could not flow through my hands. Hsien noticed it at once. “If one of the workers on the production line is not up to scratch, then what do we do?” he asked.
On this occasion, I did not pick a quarrel with him. I looked at the pile of half-completed boxes in front of me and, when I heard one of my colleagues say that my production was not up to standard and that the waste rate was high, I knew that this time neither the Mongol Kuo nor our Section Chief would oppose Hsien.
Thus, I decided to withdraw from the “water flow” process and undertook to labor alone. This was the second time since my return to China that I endured the horror of loneliness. The first time had been when I was separated from my family members. I felt as if I had been stripped naked in front of everyone and this emotion was made doubly acute when I saw on Hsien’s face, which was like the rough skin of an orange, his satisfaction over my misery. I wanted to find someone sympathetic to talk with, but in my unit everyone was working and not interested in talking.
Soon after this, I caught the flu and the night I came down with it I had a nightmare in which I saw Hsien’s orangeskin-like face approaching me. “You are a good-for-nothing man, you are only fit to be a beggar,” he said.
Then I dreamed I was standing on a bridge. The scene was exactly like the ones the eunuchs used to describe to me of the Peking beggars standing on the bridges of the city. Suddenly someone put a hand on my head and woke me up. In a blurred way, I was aware that a person in white was standing over me and feeling my forehead with his hands. “You have a high fever; your flu is getting worse. Let me examine you,” a voice said.
I was dizzy and my head felt as if my blood vessels were jumping. As I pulled myself together, I began to understand what had happened. The prison guard had heard me talking and shouting in my sleep and had tried to wake me, but couldn’t, so he had reported my condition to the Center Chief who, in turn, had asked the military doctor to come and see me.
The doctor took my temperature and a nurse gave me an injection. I fell asleep again immediately and didn’t even know when they left. I was sick for nearly a half month. During this period, I spent most of my time in bed. I neither studied nor worked.
I did more thinking during this half month than I had during the past few years. My mind raced back and forth between the paper box incident and the face of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi, which had frightened me as a child and made me cry. Heretofore, whenever I recalled that blurred image, I had only felt that the Empress Dowager had been someone to be feared. But now I felt that she was to be hated. Why should she have chosen me Emperor? I was an innocent and pure child at the time. My natural disposition and endowments were no different from those of my brother, Pu Chieh. But since I was to become an emperor, I had been raised in a vacuumlike atmosphere and no one had taught me the basic things of life. Thus, today, my practical knowledge and ability could not be compared with Pu Chieh’s; in fact, they could not be compared with a child. Because of this, I now received insults, jeers, sarcasm and bullying from men like Hsien. I really didn’t know how I could go on living.
In the past, whenever I had heard jeering or suggestive innuendoes, or whenever my lack of ability was pointed out by others, my heart had been filled with hatred. But now I began to feel that I should not hate them, for I was no longer in a position to avoid being laughed at and scolded.
In place of this hatred, a new kind of hostility developed in me against the Forbidden City. Shortly before my recovery, the Center Chief sent for me and we discussed my health and the quarrel with Hsien, as well as the education I had received as a child.
I said to him, “At the time the quarrel occurred, I was really very much agitated, but now I’m no longer angry and can only blame myself for being so difficult. Also, I blame the people in the Peking Palace.”
“Very good; you have recognized your weakness! This is progress. Inability is not something to worry about, so long as you are willing and able to recognize it and turn it into ability. It is even more important that you have found out the reason for it. Can you think why the princes and high officials educated you as they did?”
“They were only thinking about themselves,” I answered. “They disregarded me. They were selfish.”
“I’m afraid it wasn’t at all like that,” the Center Chief replied, not unkindly. “Can you honestly say that your father and your tutor Chen Pao-shen purposely tried to harm you?”
I couldn’t reply.
“You may take time to think about this problem. If you can understand it, then your illness will have had great value for your future life.”
After I returned to my cell from the Center Chief’s office, I could not dismiss the problem from my mind and, by the time I attended our regularly scheduled self-criticism review session, the first I had gone to since my illness, I had been over it several times. During this meeting, someone criticized Hsien, saying that he was unfriendly and had purposely sought to attack me. A majority seemed to be against him and there was one person who even laid the responsibility for my illness on him. Based on their self-criticism, I gathered that they all felt Hsien was having a bad effect on our reformation and remolding. Hsien, who was present, clearly became worried about this and his face turned gray; he stuttered as he sought to deliver his own self-criticism.
I did not say a word during the session, but I continued to think about my own family. When someone suggested that I should say something, Hsien’s face became ashen. “I don’t have any opinion,” I said in a low voice. “I blame my own lack of ability.”
Everyone was taken by surprise at this and Hsien’s mouth fell open. Then, all of a sudden, I began to shout and my voice became strident. “I hate the place I was born and raised in! I hate that devilish system! It was designed to ruin a person when he was young. I hate it! I hate it!” Then my voice cracked as if my vocal cords had been seized by a sudden cramp. I could no longer speak or even hear what others said.
From the end of 1953 until early 1954, we were assigned the subject of imperialism to study intensively, and in March, our Center was moved to Fushun. Shortly thereafter a working group of specially trained investigation specialists arrived to commence processing the confessional material we had produced.
At our particular Center for the Manchukuo detainees, this processing was opened with a big meeting at which the responsible personnel of the investigating group addressed us.
“You people,” they explained, “have gone through several years of study and re-education. Now, the time for admission of guilt has arrived. By this time you should have arrived at a very accurate understanding of your past conduct. You should be able to recognize what has been criminal in your past and be able to supply information on the criminal actions of the Japanese and of other Chinese traitors. The ultimate treatment you will receive from the Government will be based, on the one hand, on your own criminal conduct; and, on the other hand, on your attitude. The policy of the Government is to be lenient toward those who have confessed and sterner toward those who have resisted.”
Our Center Chief then announced that he would not allow the prisoners to exchange information during the processing period and that notes and letters between the prisoners were henceforth prohibited. Thus, every day during recreation, each group would go to the courtyard separately and could not meet with the other groups.
After this meeting, all the groups returned to their respective cells to hold intra-cell discussion sessions. It was agreed among my cellmates that each and every one of us would be frank in our confessions in order to struggle for more lenient treatment; and, in order to gain the confidence of the newly arrived special investigating personnel, I decided to rewrite my reminiscences in greater detail and in a more systematic way.
But this did not prove to be so simple. When I came to the last days of the Manchukuo government and the Soviet Russian declaration of war against Japan, I recal
led a particular incident. I had been worried that at this critical point the Japanese might become suspicious of me, so I had tried to curry favor with the Kwantung Army. On the night following the Soviet war declaration, I, acting without instructions, had asked the Premier, Chang Ching-hui, and a Japanese in charge of the General Affairs Bureau to come and see me and I gave them an oral decree asking the people of Manchukuo to support the Japanese Imperial Army in its resistance of the Soviet invasion.
Should I lie about this? If I did not confess it, it was unlikely that other people would know about it. Chang Ching-hui was clearly senile and the former head of the General Affairs Bureau had vanished. In this particular incident the Japanese had not prompted me to take action, and if I admitted it, wouldn’t this arouse the suspicion of the investigators so that they would feel I was not always controlled by the Japanese? My final decision was that it was not important if I “forgot” one or two incidents like this. I could thus place the whole responsibility on the Japanese.
Previously, I had never paid attention to the suffering caused by the Japanese in the Northeast. Ten years had passed and I thought this was not my concern. As a consequence, I failed to appreciate the implications insofar as my confession was concerned, in the fact that the Japanese detainees themselves, who were in other Centers at Fushun, had undergone changes in their point of view during their ten-year “study” period.
At an important meeting, attended by my own Center inmates and cadre teams (organized by the Japanese “study committee,” which had been formed after the majority of Japanese detainees had undergone enlightenment with respect to their own thoughts), several Japanese talked about their “studies” and frankly confessed many criminal actions, and even accused others.
During these confessions they discussed massacres, their opium policy, atrocities, etc., and these confessions and exposures of Japanese policy especially agitated the younger Manchukuo detainees. I was, as a result, thus denounced by my own nephews, brothers-in-law and Big Li, and was enmeshed in an atmosphere of hatred that came at me from all directions, even from my family clan. It was as if I were trapped in a hall of mirrors from each and every angle of which I could only see myself reflected in a hostile light.
This occurred at a subsequent meeting in our own Center. After we had returned from the conference organized by the Japanese “study committee,” we were asked to talk about our feelings. Many people still felt agitated by the Japanese confessions and, one after another, stood up to talk. They voluntarily confessed their own actions and accused others. The accusations were for the most part concentrated on the former Manchukuo Minister of Justice, but I was afraid that I would also be accused by others who might not know that I had already confessed. Thus, I felt the need to talk at this conference in order to indicate my own attitude.
But after I had supplemented my pre-Japanese meeting confession with additional material, Little Ku unexpectedly stood up from the audience and questioned me. “You have said a lot, but how come you did not mention the note?” he asked.
I was shocked speechless.
“The note! The note Little Jui gave you,” he continued.
Then Little Hsiu stood up and said, “A moment ago you mentioned that all of your jewels and treasure were surrendered voluntarily. Why didn’t you mention that it was prompted by Little Jui?”
“Correct. Correct,” I mumbled. “I was about to mention it, I was about to say that this action was actually initiated by Little Jui, but . . . but . . .” Fortunately the meeting was adjourned at this point.
Upon my return to my cell, I again took up my pen and wrote an additional self-exposure document for the Center authorities. When I thought how angry the Center Director would become when he found out these new details and how I had withheld them, I couldn’t help but blame Little Jui. Why should he have told the others about this incident? After all, we still belonged to the same family.
Each accusation had to be read by the accused person himself. Investigator Chiao showed me the file of material on me and asked me to examine it and initial the points on which I agreed and write a defense on the points with which I disagreed.
I first read the documents written by some of the former high Manchukuo officials and I signed my name to these. Subsequently, I read the documents written by my family clan. Before I had finished the first one, a cold sweat came out on the palms of my hands. For they contained even more denunciations than at the recent meeting that had followed the revelations by the Japanese. One of them was as follows:
On August 9, 1945, I entered the palace at night to see Pu Yi. Pu Yi was writing on a piece of paper. At that time, the Premier and a Japanese were waiting outside for a chance to see him. Pu Yi showed me the note he was writing. The contents were something like this: “Order all the military and civilian people in Manchukuo to join up with the Japanese Imperial Army to fight in order to crush the Soviet invaders.” Pu Yi told me he would show this note to the Premier and the Japanese.
There was also the following:
At the movies in the palace, whenever the Japanese Emperor was shown on the screen, Pu Yi would stand at attention. Whenever there were scenes showing the Japanese occupation of new areas, he applauded because the movie projector operator was Japanese. In 1944, to save coal and charcoal, Pu Yi ordered that the heat should be turned off in his residence, but he kept an electric heater in his bedroom. When Pu Yi escaped to Talitzu-kou he put some Japanese gods and a picture of Hirohito’s mother in the compartment of the train and each time he passed them, he made a 90-degree bow and also ordered others to do the same.
In Little Jui’s accusation, he reported the following item:
He (Pu Yi) used about 20 orphans as servants. Some were eleven or twleve years old whose parents had been murdered by the Japanese invaders and who had been taken care of by a general relief association. They worked 17 to 18 hours a day and received only poor food to eat. He used all kinds of cruel punishment on them. Beating their palms was common and this was the lightest punishment they received. At times they were put in wooden cages. When they became eighteen or nineteen their height was only that of a child of twelve. An assistant of Pu Yi once beat an orphan to death and yet Pu Yi claims he is a Buddhist and vegetarian and has never even wanted to kill a fly or mosquito.
Big Li showed his hostility in another document:
Pu Yi is both cruel and afraid of death. He is suspicious, tricky and a hypocrite. When he beat or scolded his servants, it was not for mistakes they committed, but due to his own mood at the time. If he did not feel well, or was tired, then the servants would suffer all kinds of punishment, the lightest form of which was when he used his fists or kicked them. Yet when he met outsiders this hypocrite was the best of men.
There were wooden benches and horsewhips in Tientsin. In Manchukuo there were new forms of punishment added. He tried to train many accomplices to beat people and if they were slow at it, he would accuse them of siding with his victims and then they themselves would be beaten.
His nephews and attendants have all beaten others. On one occasion, a twelve- or thirteen-year-old orphan was so badly beaten he got a cut one foot long. It took a physician two or three months to cure him and, during the treatment, Pu Yi asked me to send the boy milk and other things and tell him that His Majesty was kind and ask him if he would have gotten such goodies in an orphanage.
After I had read all this material, even the arguments for my own defense, which I had just completed, seemed shaken to their roots. I had always found justification for my actions in the belief that someone else in my position would have done the same thing. Thus, when I had submitted to Japanese pressure and followed their directions, I had rationalized that I had to do it and had no other alternative. And when I made demands on family members or took away or gave them things, or punished them, I had felt that these actions were within my prerogatives. All this had seemed to me natural and reasonable. Now I understood that there were other people who were
not like this, and that my family members were no longer interested in maintaining my reputation as the last Manchu Emperor.
The investigation material on conditions in the Northeast under the Japanese had demonstrated that there were common people who, even under extreme pressures, would not bend as I had done.
For example, there had been a common farmer named Hsiao Chen-fang who had helped his uncle send food to the Communist resistance movement and also acted as guide for the Communist army and undertook various resistance tasks. On April 21, 1943, in the middle of the night, six policemen suddenly entered his house. Since his uncle was absent, he was bound and taken to police headquarters for questioning. The police beat him nearly to death and later poured cold water into his nose to revive him and then beat him again. They did this four times, but he told them nothing. The last time they beat him they thought he was dead and had him taken to a common grave in a “sanitary cart.”
While en route, this stubborn man revived and was saved by one of the cart drivers.
Also, in 1943, a teen-ager named Li Ying-hua sent some fresh eggs to the resistance army and was arrested by the police. At first they served him cigarettes, poured tea for him and invited him to eat. They told him, “You are only a child; we’ll release you as soon as you tell us what you know about the resistance army.” The boy, after he had smoked a cigarette, drunk the tea and eaten the food, said, “I’m only a farm boy. I don’t know a thing!” The Secret Police then hung him upside down, gave him electric shocks, burned him with cigarettes and bumped his body against a nail board. But they found out nothing from him.